Sweatstock 2012: Haochi Waves, Kazoots, and Plains

Just before Haochi Waves began their set, drummer and vocalist Juan Fernando Oña popped his head into the Churchill's Pub patio bar to announce that his band was about to start playing.

This crew is a modified version of its three members' old band, Pretty Please. Just harder and more feedback-laden. And even though the Pub's seen its share of loud bands, the PA sounded scorched after Haochi Waves got done with it.

Kazoots is a perfect example of what seems to be a growing trend in Miami music: a shift away from frontperson-focused groups toward something more collective. The State Of, Pool Party, Haochi Waves, and several others on the Sweatstock bill aren't impenetrable circles with one person at the center. These bands are true group scenes.

As for Kazoots's music, it's a wide-ranging fusion of guitar scratches and carpel-tunnel-inducing basslines, start-stop drums, and two female vocalists with very different yet complementary voices.

Photo by Ronnie Rivera

Plains is music for dismantling dinosaurs. How do we know? A superfan who looked to be about six years old spent the show with his head pressed against the monitors, taking apart and reassembling a toy dinosaur with feverish intensity.

The kid also won a totebag in a trivia contest (the correct number the host was thinking of was "five"), slam danced in a puddle, and jumped his scooter off a ramp, all to Plains. Little dude was wild.

But back to dismantling dinosaurs: It's just as easy to imagine Plains setting up their amps inside a museum and pouding the hell out of history as tyrannosaurus fossils shatter on the floor all around them. And even with the Paleolithic setup of two guitars, bass, and drums, Plains are doing something new.

Their songs shimmer and crush all at once, retaining nuance while also turning even the most recalcitrant Sweatstockers into six-year-old freakazoids. Plains killed it.